Building Business Resilience

Timeframe: July 2022 – December 2022

Small to medium businesses are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change - both direct and indirect.  SECCCA identified that south east regional businesses have varying levels of preparedness and need support to increase their resilience and help manage risks from climate change. 

SECCCA has been funded by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) as part of the Regional Climate Change Adaptation Strategy for Greater Melbourne to develop resources for the business sector to help businesses conduct climate risk assessment, mitigation and planning.

Building on SECCCA’s asset vulnerability assessment project, SECCCA is well positioned to provide information to businesses that demonstrate their exposure to climate extremes and how they can respond to and improve resilience.

SECCCA engaged Science into Action to deliver the project, working with a small number of small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) to pilot and test an adaptation toolkit, case studies and adaptation plans.

Part of the project included developing a vulnerability assessment to determine those areas in the SECCCA region most vulnerable to extreme weather events, using the work done previously in the SECCCA asset vulnerability assessment project.

This work also identified five priority business sectors of high importance to the SECCCA region.  These are:

1.       Construction
2.       Manufacturing
3.       Health care & social assistance
4.       Retail & Wholesale
5.       Professional, Scientific & Technical services (combined with Real Estate and Rental)

At the completion of this project, businesses will receive a free climate change risk assessment and adaptation plan with high level priorities and self-generated costings. The projected project outcomes include:

• Increased awareness among small business owners of the climate vulnerability of their businesses, and potential adaptation pathways;

• Documentation for use by other small businesses in the SECCCA region (or elsewhere) to guide how to build their own adaptation options; and

• An understanding of the next steps in building small business climate resilience in the SECCCA region.